I started writing stories for Garrison’s Gorillas when the show was being aired in 1967-68. I wrote for about five years, then stopped, but could never let myself throw my scribbling away. A year ago, I discovered there were others out there who loved the show and the characters as much as I did. I never knew there was fan fiction until I accidently found this site. It prompted me to dig my files of yellowed handwritten pages out of their packing boxes and start to work on my computer. It took another year and much encouragement from friends to post my first story. I hope those of you that read my story, and the ones to follow, will review them. Tell me what I’m doing right and what I’m doing wrong. If you have any suggestions, please give them to me. I will see what I can do with them.

I grew up hanging around the front lots of MGM Studios. Security was always very strict on the famous Lot 3, so I never got to see it. Sadly, I never got to see any of the wonderful actors who portrayed Garrison and his band of men.

There wasn’t much personal background given for the men in the one season the show aired, so we get to make up our own backgrounds. In my world, Lt. Craig Garrison is the oldest son of a military family. There are three girls and three boys. Their father is a general, stationed in Washington. The rest of the family lives on a ranch in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Montana. As on the show, Garrison is a West Point graduate. Actor was born in Italy. He lost his immediate family over a period of years in his teens, forcing him out on his own and into a lifestyle not in fitting with his aristocratic family, but giving him an excellent background to help him with his cons. Casino has family in Chicago and New York. His bootlegging background was brought out in the show. Goniff is British American with a mother and aunt in New York as on the show. Chief is Apache from the southern border between Arizona and New Mexico. I have made him actually younger than the age on his dossier and with some question to the validity of the charges that ended in his imprisonment. The Garrison siblings play prominent roles in my stories along with the characters from the show. There is a tiny bit of crossover with 12 O’Clock High, but not enough in my opinion to warrant calling it a crossover.

I have a medical background, so please forgive me if I tend to shoot, stab, and apply further mayhem to the characters. After all, it was a war and they were in dangerous situations that set them up for more injuries than they should normally have had.

I guess I should say too that I don't own the show or the guys. Wish I did. I don't get any monetory gain from any of this. What I get is the personal satisfaction of being able to write about them and share them with others forty some years now after the series aired.

What to do about Goniff's birthday? A little story in celebration of Chris Cary's birthday. Sadly missed, always remembered. A wonderful actor and director, and the only person who could have possibly portrayed Goniff.